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| This bird's got something to say. Photo: Franco Atirador |
Scientists have found that wild ravens make gestures, a feat even most primates can鈥檛 manage. What the birds are
saying, however, is anyone鈥檚 guess.
Pointing is one of the simplest ways to communicate. In humans, hand gestures are seen as baby-steps in learning language. To some extent, science has long ignored the possibility that the handless members of the animal kingdom could be gesturing, too.
But after two years observing ravens in the field, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology have spotted ravens doing exactly that. They鈥檝e reported their discovery in .
Raven gestures are targeted to members of the opposite sex and, like a well-timed wink, seem to be an effective way of getting attention. Specifically, the ravens use their beaks to point to or display nearby objects, including rocks, moss, or twigs.
In an odd twist on more common bird behavior like gift giving, these objects are inedible and once a raven鈥檚 caught his partner鈥檚 attention, the birds don鈥檛 actually do anything with the materials.
Scientists aren鈥檛 really sure what鈥檚 going on here. It could be a totally instinctive process, like a mating display, or it could be sophisticated symbolic signaling. Something like, 鈥淒id you remember to leave twigs on the nest today?鈥
Regardless, the attention to objects is one more clue into the world view of crows and ravens, and鈥攇iven their 鈥攊t suggests that like humans, theirs is a material world.
For more on brainy birds, take a look at our Perch post pitting .